Customer Service

When Molly and I arrived yesterday morning, Mother immediately volunteered, "I had the meanest nurse!" We wanted to know what the nurse had done that Mother had perceived as mean.

"She walked in here, said, 'Are you alright?', and left."

We asked her what she had answered. Had she said she was okay? "Yes", she answered.

Okay, so what was she expecting? I guess she was expecting someone to hang around and entertain her. And the lack of meeting that expectation equaled poor customer service.

Yesterday was a very long day. Having originally been told surgery was scheduled for 3:00 and that she would be taken down to the OR suite around 1:30, because of the difficulty of the previous surgery, she slid to 6:00. But she slid about 15 minutes at a time. Visibly anxious, Molly and I had to resort to songs and old stories to keep her mind off the delay.

The meds she was being given caused hallucinations, which included thinking my cousin would remember our greatgrandmother, who died decades before our births, and asking if we had gotten the axe out of the attic of the house she owned three houses ago!

By the time she was ready to go into surgery, the one mean nurse had multiplied—now there had been two mean nurses!

The moral of the story? If you're nice and go a few steps further than required, you'll make a good impression on your client/patient/friend.

Today's pictures? At the top, you can see her death-grip on the PCA pump. She's not letting that thing out of her hand. She says she has no pain so long as she's lying still. The physical therapy techs will be here in a few minutes, and we expect to hear some screaming as they attempt to get her to sit on the edge of the bed.

Picture two is the X-ray showing the fracture.

Picture three is one of the four images showing the hardware she now will carry with her for the rest of her life.

She is alert and awake this morning (although dozing as I write), and her sense of humor is active. We are very lucky—I wasn't sure I would see her today!!